Displaced
by Wangan
Summary: Time is a sturdy thing. It can be bent, warped, and thrown around like a chew toy so long as there is someone to straighten it out later. For Kram, an Acrosian Time Patroller, the mission that dropped him here had started like any other. Now he's out of his depth, among ninja and magic and with no idea where the hell he is. Oh, and some how he was turned into a human...just, great.


The darkened sky echoed with thunder as titans traded blows Or rather while two titan's tried to beat the ever loving crap out of each other. It was a sight to see. Each impact was almost visible in that air above the ruined city that had become a battlefield. One man in a blue and orange Gi with blue aura shrouding him like a cloak fighting with all his might against...well, against a god.

Not a true God but a Kai who's ambitions and mind were twisted beyond all reason and the consequence of his actions had twisted his body beyond any sort of repair. Half of his body was rotting. What had once been green unblemished skin oozed and dripped, purple flesh barely holding together. It was clear that this had been an unexpected result of the fusion between Black and Zamasu and the Kai wasn't taking it well.

It's witnesses watched the battle with hope. One with tense expectation. The latter stood out, not only as one of the few mortals that were still alive in the desolation that earth had become but also in appearance as he wasn't human.

Even if Earth hadn't been nearly decimated, he would've stood out which was why he was hiding among the rubble.

Most would've thought it was the holstered pistol on hip, the black belt of it distinct against the dark green pants he wore, but a gun was an empty threat to the subjects of his attention. It wasn't even loaded. He wore it for the novelty. There was a surreal feeling wearing something that was so deadly to most while going toe to toe against the .01% who could dodge and catch the best slugspitter could fire _and_ throw it back with even greater force.

No, the gun wouldn't have caught anyone's attention. It was his appearance or rather his species. He be made in an instant and he wasn't quite sure that the reactions wouldn't be hostile.

The white carapace like armor, the short stature, the green biogem on his head where hair would be if he was human, the tail, and the horns would out him in half a glance. Not even his light green skin would be of help to distract from one main fact.

He was Arcosian and it was the main reason he was out of sight with his Ki powered all the way down.

His name was Kram and while witnessing these battles never failed to amaze him it was a sad event to see.

To the Time Patroller...what he was witnessing was a tragedy, a drama for the stage if the stakes were so high. A play which being one of the more studious time patrollers of his graduating class, the Arcoisan had the privilege of knowing its ending. They would lose. Not just the battle but the war in every sense of the word.

Zamasu, the genocidal Kai falling apart at the seams as his fusion failed him, would be killed here but because of the time rings would escape death and fulfill his plan. Xen-o would be summoned and the universe would be erased to the last.

Having known all of this, Kram wondered how Trunks was able to cope. Even with the duties as Head of Time Patrol to distract him and having seen what meeting his Master, Gohan did to him, to have all that work come to nothing... It was sad. Heartbreaking even.

He wished he could prevent this from happening if only because the half-saiyan was a just leader. Good and kind to everyone, with a few screw-ups here and there but what leader doesn't make mistakes.

Still, that wasn't his job and the Kai's only knew how many timelines had been made at this point between Zamasu and Trunk's actions alone. Just thinking about it was enough to make his horns itch, which he idly scratched as he watched the fight play out. He wasn't supposed to get involved unless something changed from it path. The whole 'Wait-And-See' approach which was irritating enough to deal with but then there was Zamasu's fate.

Being erased was far too kind a punishment in his mind. Kram would never call himself a moral being. In fact, he and his kind, like the most infamous of his species, had a slight sadistic edge to their nature. Arcosians weren't called Ice Demons just for the cold blood and horns. It was a hard thing to overcome, taking a lifetime of being raised in a different culture to their homeworld where there worst of their behavior wasn't just encouraged but rewarded.

Kram knew that few would mind if he put the Kai through the full rigors of 'Icejin' hospitality. He was an arrogant hypocrite who got off far too easily for what he'd done. All the killing, all the destruction...all of it because he couldn't understand mortal life and he just gets erased. So he took great pleasure to see the Kai planted a good ten feet in the ground by a punch from Vegito that made him wince out of reflex. No doubt he'd been in the same position during many of the fights to correct the main timeline, especially against Frieza and Cooler. That full 100% is no joke, add in the Fifth Form and getting a left hook would bury you if you didn't dodge in time.

And that was without considering the power boost from Towa's magic.

Good lord, all that training he'd done in preparation and Cooler only barely managed to not use him as a ping-pong ball.

Zamasu pulled himself up into the air, his unsteady swaying pretty much stating that last punch had hurt more than the snarl painted on his face would hint at. His swollen right arm, purple with rot swung just a little too limply than a natural arm should. Then again, calling anything about this twisted man natural would be such a stretch of the word it would split a dictionary in half.

"Final..." Still, he never got a chance to respond before Vegito spread his arms out wide then in a single smooth motion, cupped them together and cocked the building ball of Ki to his hip. "...KAMEHAMEHA!"

The blast fired like a cannon, it's blend of energies rolling towards it's target with the inevitability of a blue and yellow avalanche. The explosion was massive. Kram nodded to himself, everything was going as it should. The attack wouldn't kill the Kaioshin but-

He stiffened as Zamasu rose into the air. What was supposed to happen from here was, Vegito would use instant transmission to get right up in the 'God's' face and deliver one last punch before their time ran out unfortunately early.

The Kai was NOT supposed to have his twisted parody of a halo back.

Well, to say it was back was a bit much. The glowing shape was twisted and warped, flickering like a broken light bulb as he climbed out of the smoke, outstreched arms leaving trails behind him.

But he shouldn't have it in the first place.

He tapped his scouter. "Lady Chorona."

"_I see it. It's a slight divergence to correct but nothing too maj-"_

Kram's attention was snatched away from whatever else the Kai of Time had to say as the only other Kai present began to laugh.

It was a light thing, at first. Done in the stereo of two voices that loved to hear itself talk, the laughter rose in volume as he just hung there in the air. It increased in pitch as it continued, the glowing symbol brightening and dimming as each hysterical laugh rose to a higher and higher point. Then, like a switch had been flipped somewhere, he stopped with a wheezy gasp, voice cracking slightly.

"I'm guessin' you've finally lost it?" Vegito...and pretty much everyone had been staring at him in mild shock at the outburst

"I will end all of you," Then Zamasu's finger began to glow. "I'll go back to where this started and fix the error that is mortality."

The Time Ring began to glow. The realization hit everyone but it clicked for Kram first. He knew his duty well and right now the observational part of his mission was over.

He flew, fast enough that he was able to launch from his hiding place and get within arms reach of the Kai before he was noticed as he powered up.

What he didn't know at the time was that Zamasu's shock had been more complete than he'd ever had suspected. The Kai was arrogant, genocidal, and literally falling apart at the seams, but he wasn't stupid. He knew that no one would allow him to just stand there and use the time ring without doing something to stop him which was why his fingers were less than an inch away from pressing into his forehead before the unknown fighter had popped out of nowhere.

Half his mind, the part that was mortal and rotting, wanted to stay and gauge this new quantity. The rest knew he didn't have time to do so. He touched his forehead and prepared to use his instant transmission.

At the same moment, Vegito had recovered from the shock of seeing his opponent start laughing like a madman and, seeing the ring start to glow, knew that he couldn't allow this monster a way out. He hesitated when what looked like Frieza but green and wearing pants, flew from behind a building like he was shot out a cannon and bee-lined for Zamasu like a missile. Still, even with another shock on top of shock, he was quicker on the draw with Transmission than the god was and appeared right before him just as the other's fingers touched skin, close enough to the unknown alien to brush shoulders.

Vegito's appearance was enough to distract Zamasu from Kram, who took his chance.

A green aura surrounded the Arcosian's hand, a technique that both fighters would've recognized as he charged. Making a Ki blade wasn't a unique skill. All one really had to do was wrap energy around their hand and flatten it to an edge. However, it took a supreme amount of control to do so. You had to, in the midst of battle, take your Ki and shape it into a blade, flattening it and shaping it over and over into so many layers like an actual sword so it wouldn't burst into pieces like a bubble in the first strike. Most who didn't at least practice this before hand would be able to pull it off.

Kram had never pulled half measures when learning techniques and modifying them out of necessity.

His blade sliced into the purple hand with the sound of a spoon sinking into a jar of jam, cutting through all the fingers to allow him to snatch at the time ring with his free hand. Even the bone seemed to give just a little too easily and made clear just how unstable the fusion was. Zamasu's roar of pain and rage was cut off as Vegito curved down a blow to the middle of his face.

The two events made him loose concentration as he started his instant transmission and the time ring which had been charging up to send him to the past also activated as it spun a full circle in the air, a thin purple beam, cutting a slash across reality... And across Zamasu's chest, Vegito's leg, and along Kram's hand.

None of the three would've had time to understand the mechanics of what was about to happen in that moment. Looking back years later, Kram would've guessed that Instant Transmission was bending space and time slightly. Just enough to cause a ripple but not enough to truly create alternate realities or timelines. It was a way to change places...well, instantly. And few things in the universe could really be called instant. So as Zamasu lost control of the Time Ring and Transmission at the same time, all Kram really understood as his fingers closed around the ring was that something bad was about to happen.

Something was...but not before the insane Kai began to scream in agony. His wish on the dragon balls was to be immortal...however being spit lengthwise by the very forces of time while milliseconds away from an uncontrolled instant transmission has an effect that can become quite...mortal in it's permanence.

From where the purple energy cut, lines began to spread across Zamasu's body as the time ring split apart the fabric of space. They were prefect straight pencil lines that, uncaring of the folds of fabric or the shape of the body, followed exact 90 degree turns that folded in or around themselves multiple times but consistently spreading to unmarked parts of the body until he looked like a living labyrinthine puzzle. The Kai's limbs stiffened like he was being electrocuted, the stereo of his voice warbling his pain as his form began to flicker as his halo began to break apart yet again.

His other half, the one that was little more than corrupted flesh held together by the Potara, burst into flames. Purple sparks that traced the lines still spreading, still making some unknown pattern. The flames that followed were so hot that it flashed fried the fetid mass into a cloud of black rancid smoke so foul that Kram was sure he'd vomit on the spot.

Then the cut in time split wide and with the sound of an avalanche building into a thunderclap, exploded. And fate turned with it.

Kram's only warning was the almost instant brightening of the lines pulling Zamasu apart and the flames consumed him.

Then the flames reversed. Like an explosion being rewound, they were sucked back into the lines on Zamasu's body and revealing both the Kaioshin and Vegito still where they were before the explosion. Specifally, with the latter's fist firmly buried in the former's face. Without the flames blocking his vision, he then saw the world around him fade. Where there had once been a ruined city and dark sky was slowly pulling away like a dirty run off a floor, replaced by the purest most violent...white that he'd ever seen. It was a roiling almost living bubbled of nothing that rolled from the horizon and then past them without even a tingle.

Kram reached for his scouter to ask what was going on...or tired to. His limbs didn't respond to his commands. His hands, his legs, his fingers clenched around the ring, it was as if every nerve from his eyes down had simply stopped.

Stomach sinking like a stone, he focused on the others and realized they were in the exact same state. Both of them had their eyes frantically swirling in their sockets as they also tired to move, an almost symbiotic panic building in them that Kram had no doubt he was showing as well. He'd never seen anything like this before, never felt anything like this before, nor had any of his many lessons or any of his studies of time covered this...nothing he was trapped in.

Suddenly, the two fighters before him vanished in a flash of blue light that he recognized as a time transfer to the Time Nest.

He hoped for a moment that he'd soon follow but the white nothing surged forward in a burst of speed, closing in like a predator realizing it's prey was about to get away.

The white flowed and pulsed, climbing over him like a tidal wave about to crash...then Kram was falling.

For a singular moment, he was spinning out of control, twirling through empty dark air with such force, he was certain he'd just been hit.

He twisted his body frantically to get under some control, whirling around like a top caught in a tornado.

Then, the uncontrollable spinning came to a violent end, as he crashed into something hard and but yielding. It was telling just how much he'd gotten his tail beaten down of his time as a partoller that he was able to recognize what it was immediately.

Cold and hard ground.

He couldn't help but feel relieved by the improvised cradle. His sense of touch was back and he could move freely.

A groan slipped from his lips as his joints throbbed. Slowly, he raised himself out of the crater, really trying not to vomit from the trip into it and felt dirt and stone fall off his body. Looking around, he saw the line of broken trees and the plowed trench he'd made on his way in.

It took several moment of scrabbling at the sides of the small compact crater before Kram remembered he could fly.

After instinctively looking around to make sure no one could see his embarrassment, he powered up and hopped.

Floating into the air and landing on the grass, he bent to sit down meaning to catch his breath and wait until his head stopped spinning but froze halfway, his attention hooked by his hand.

Something was off.

He stared, the light blue skin clear in the daylight and flipped his hand back and fourth. He didn't care if anyone came by and through he'd lost it. A voice in the back of his mind told him he was wasting his time since, after everything that had just happened, his hand was the least interesting or alarming issue on the table. Yet he couldn't shake the troubled feeling, unable to place what was wrong. It was buzzing, a single black fly on a black wall begging, screaming for him to notice the out of place movement.

Leaning in for a closer look, he nearly jumped out of his skin when something shifted on his head and dropped in front of his eyes. Swiping at what looked like threads, the froze again when he saw the greaves of his armor.

It wasn't carapace anymore, it as a sleeve. Straightening, he looked down at himself and cloth, colored in the same style of his armor looked back. "What in the hells…?" He mumbled, tugging at the vest that had once been his curass. The offness bothering him stepped out of the shadows with jazz hands and a 'Ta-Da!' before slapping him upside the head for being so dim.

It wasn't that just that _something_ felt wrong. His everything felt wrong. His armor felt soft and loose, so unlike the form fitting armor that had become his second skin. The lack of familiar weight made him feel exposed. Now that he thought about it, his skin seemed less...smooth than it should. His hand drifted from his face up to the top of his head where-

An icy chill turned his stomach.

He needed a mirror.

With a hop, he took off into the sky and began searching. It didn't take him long to find a clear river, barely a mile away from where he crashed. As he came down for a landing though, he could help but notice that he had no idea where he was. His head still felt like it was a fishing lure in the middle of a whirlpool so maybe it was that but he was certain that he wasn't in West City or its outskirts anymore.

Any worry about his location was smacked out of him when he landed. His chest tightened as he realized why his hand looked so odd. Arcosian skin was reptilian in nature, smooth and tight to the touch. Unblemished by time or age, no matter how long-lived two species got. But his hands, these _human_ hands, looked much more pliable. The natural wrinkles and folds of the skin he'd seen from his human and saiyan brothers in arms was totally and truly alien in the context of it being his skin now.

It only got worse from there. His horns were gone, his gem had turned into hair, and his Bioarmor had turned into clothing.

How?

Battling against the urge to recoil, he reached for his scouter. He had to tell Kai of Time about this, get some answers about what had happened. He was so caught up in the vision before him he didn't realize he was pressing a finger to his temple until he tapped again, thinking that may be the scouter hadn't registered the first time.

Maybe it it had fallen off back where he'd landed. Yeah, that's gotta be it. Wanting to put as much space between him, the natural mirror, and the stranger in it, he leap into the air and flew back to where he crashed. It was easy to find. The thirty foot long scar of shattered trees and turned up dirt stood out.

Coming down to the very deep end of it, Kram shuffled around kicking up the dirt and brushing small rocks aside in his search.

He found nothing.

"Well, that's just great." He hissed, throwing up his hands in defeat. Probably destroyed in that white whatever that struck him. No scouter meant no communication with the time nest no communication with the time nest meant no time travel.

In short, he was lost, isolated, far from home, and transformed into a human being somehow.

At least he still had his tail. That was a small comfort and he patted it against the ground to make sure it was indeed still their at that he wasn't imaging it.

Order that all into a list and he felt confident he could put a great big **'I'm Screwed'** at the top and notarize it at the bottom.

Floating out of the crater and coming to rest against a tree, he leaned back and started think. Shuffling through his pockets, he was a little less shocked to find that even his Capsules were gone.

Okay, first order of business was food and shelter. He could survive in space able but he still needed to eat and have a roof over his head like everyone else... or could he-

He shook the thoughts out of his mind. No need wandering down that path.

It wouldn't be hard to hunt something down. He was fast enough and Earth had plenty of edible flora and fauna so going hungry would not be a worry. If he needed to cook he could use his Ki to start a small campfire in a pinch. However, this was only a short-term thing. He wasn't planning on roughing it for any serious stretch of time. He would take a nap, get himself a snack, and then fly until he found a recognizable landmark. At full throttle, he guessed maybe an hour before he ran into something familiar. After that he'd just wing it from there.

As he closed his eyes for a short rest, he noticed more than one of the limbs on the tree he was relaxing against had a large unfamiliar but unmistakable fruit, adding sweet scent to the air around him. Shaped like a large pear, its skin was a glossy pink, and textured like a lemon or an orange. "Maybe this is my luck turning around," he mumbled, relaxing.

_Many miles and a day away..._

"Let's go!" A young orange clad ninja with wild blonde hair whooped, raising his fists like a victor crossing a finish line.

His other three traveling partners were less enthusiastic.

"What are you so excited about?" Sakura asked, looking thoroughly irritated by Naruto's one-man cheer routine. Sasuke remained silent, less irritated more bored by his teammate's display.

Naruto didn't even skip a beat, his whisker marks turned up from his ear to ear smile. "'cause I never left the village before."

"Hey!" Tazuna blurted with an accusing finger pointed square at the ninja, glancing at the only other adult over his shoulder. "Am I really going to be safe with this brat?"

"Well, I am a Jounin, don't worry." Kakashi Hatake answer with a light chuckle in an effort to deflect the argument he knew was coming.

But not even the most tactful of evasions was enough to stop the bulwark that was Naruto Uzumaki. One short exchange later and Kakashi holding the temperamental 12 year old back from trying to knock out the client, the group was on its way…


End file.
